Celebrating the winners of the IBP National Journalism Awards 2022

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 49th IBP National Journalism Awards 2022. The ceremony took place on Thursday 17 November at the IET Savoy Place in central London.

Will Ing, Senior Reporter at the Architects’ Journal was named ‘Journalist of the Year’ and Dezeen won ‘Editorial Brand of the Year’. IBP also gave a special ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Profession’ award to Oliver Shah, Associate Editor and Leader Writer at The Sunday Times. You can see the full list of winners detailed below.

All of the winning articles are now presented in IBP’s new digital publication, the ‘Best Stories in Construction 2022’ – a must-read for anyone working in the built environment.

IBP National Journalism Award 2022 winners:
  • Journalist of the Year: Will Ing, Architects’ Journal
  • Editorial Brand of the Year: Dezeen
  • New Journalist of the Year: Gráinne Cuffe, Inside Housing
  • Architectural Writer of the Year: Will Ing, Architects’ Journal
  • Business / Financial Journalist of the Year: Joshua Stein, Construction News
  • Construction / Infrastructure Journalist of the Year: Rob Horgan, New Civil Engineer
  • Feature Writer of the Year: Peter Apps, Inside Housing
  • Housing / Residential Property Journalist of the Year: Peter Apps, Inside Housing
  • News Reporter of the Year: Will Ing, Architects’ Journal
  • Scoop of the Year: Jack Simpson, Inside Housing

The awards were judged by a panel of influential journalists and professionals drawn from across the industry. Chair of the judges Sarah Richardson commented: “Determined, passionate and informative: these are just three of the plaudits that cropped up time and again in the judging sessions for this year’s IBP Awards. Whether they were looking at hard-hitting investigations, thought-provoking features or the way that the built environment’s leading brands have evolved over the past year, our judges were deeply impressed with the best-in-class journalism that this year’s winning entries, and those on the shortlists, represent.”

Chair of IBP, Harriett Hindmarsh said: “Our annual IBP journalism awards are the heart of who we are, and who we strive to be as an organisation, as we move forward with our new vision to ‘Establish, champion and develop skill at the highest level in built environment journalism and communications.’

It is always great to see old and new friends at the awards every year. Thank you to our fantastic awards presenter David Bond, deputy Political Editor of the Evening Standard. Huge congratulations to all our deserving winners: Gráinne Cuffe, Will Ing, Joshua Stein, Rob Horgan, Jack Simpson and Peter Apps, and to Oliver Shah for his Outstanding Contribution award. And of course, congratulations to Dezeen for winning Editorial Brand of the Year. This has been a difficult year for Dezeen, losing founder and IBP friend Marcus Fairs, but the team continues to bring his concept to their readers in such an exciting way.”

Photos from the event, including shots of all the winners, social media graphics and more can be found on our Awards Hub.

 

Oliver Shah receives Outstanding Contribution Award

IBP has recognised the outstanding contribution of one of our industry’s most successful and respected journalists, Oliver Shah, Associate Editor and Leader Writer at The Sunday Times.

For 15 years he has been one of the leading journalists in the property world, through his writing for the Sunday Times and latterly, his must-read weekly column in React News.

He was named business journalist of the year at the 2017 Press Awards for his investigation into Sir Philip Green’s £1 sale of BHS. The judges described it as ‘the standout business story of the year’ and said that his ‘bravery [and] doggedness… brought the whole BHS affair to the public consciousness’.

He was also named business journalist of the year at the 2017 London Press Club Awards. Oliver has been interviewed on Radio Four’s Today Programme, BBC News, BBC Five Live and Sky News.

He attended Reading grammar school and studied English literature at Cambridge University between 2002 and 2005. He worked for various trade magazines before completing a postgraduate qualification in newspaper journalism at City University in 2008. He then joined the London business daily City AM in 2009 and The Sunday Times in 2010.

His first book, Damaged Goods: The Inside Story of Sir Philip Green, the Collapse of BHS and the Death of the High Street was published in 2018 and was a Sunday Times bestseller.

Oliver received his award at the IBP National Journalism Awards ceremony on 17 November 2022.

IBP National Journalism Awards 2022 Judges

The IBP Journalism Awards are judged by a panel of influential journalists and professionals drawn from across the industry. A huge thank you to all of this year’s judges:

• Adrian Barrick – Group editorial director, Incisive Media. Former editor, Building
• Dr. Barbara Rowlands – Media consultant and educator. Former Associate Professor in Journalism, City, University of London
• Caroline Thorpe – Freelance journalist
• David Taylor – Editor of NLQ, New London Weekly & Velocity Magazine. Strategic consultant, ING Media
• Denise Chevin MBE – Freelance editor and journalist. Former editor, Building
• Dominic Morgan – Director, Ing media. Former deputy editor, Property Week
• Emma Maier – Freelance editor and publishing consultant. Former editor Inside Housing
• Giles Barrie – Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting. Former editor of Property Week & Deputy Editor of Building
• James Whitmore – Director, Tavistock. Former executive editor, Property Week
• John Slaughter – Director of Industry Affairs, Home Builders Federation
• Katherine Smale – Business Development Manager, Ferrovial. Former technical journalist, New Civil Engineer
• Kunle Barker – Group Chairman, Studio Anyo. Presenter & Curator, Grand Designs Live
• Mike Leonard – CEO, Building Alliance
• Nick Duxbury – Group Creative Lead, Redwood BBDO. Former executive editor, Inside Housing
• Phin Harper – Chief Executive, Open City and columnist at Dezeen. Former deputy editor, The Architectural Review
• Rebecca Evans – Director of Impact and Communications, Revealing Reality. Former editor, Construction News
• Richard Northedge – Finance writer. Former editor, Sunday Business.
• Sarah Richardson – Group Editor, Research Professional News. Former editor, Building.
• Tim Danton – Director, Danton Media, Consultant to Dennis Publishing
• Vanessa Norwood – Architecture curator and consultant
• Yasmin Jones-Henry – Cities Strategist – Culture & Place, ING Media

Clive Branson: An appreciation by friends and former colleagues

Gerald Bowey, former CEO, IBP, writes:
The passing of Clive Branson draws to a close one of the most varied careers in financial and property journalism across a range of media platforms. However, Clive’s heart and mind remained in Fleet Street and with the national media that he loved so much.

I first met Clive in the early 1980’s when he was editor of CSW, based in Red Lion Court and I was a director of Creasy Public Relations, in Crane Court, both just situated off Fleet Street. I was heading up the Campaign for Traditional Housing at the time, but CPR had just won the BMW Motorbike PR account and, as I knew Clive was a motorbike and speed fanatic, I invited him to give the latest model a test drive and critique the experience. It took some time to get the bike back from him!

We became firm friends and when I became chairman of IBP in 1992, I asked him to be the Vice Chairman. Typical Clive, at first, he asked why? I explained that I wanted to broaden the appeal of IBP to the national press and that I would find his background and knowledge invaluable in achieving this ambition. Clive never faltered and was a steadfast supporter of IBP. He was particularly effective as the chairman of the journalism awards judging panel for the Young Journalist category, he was passionate about encouraging young newcomers to journalism and went out of his way to guide them in the right direction. It was also Clive’s idea to establish the IBP Northwest Regional Journalism Awards in 2008. He clearly identified that the regional property sector was not only creating some outstanding developments but talented young journalists too.

Following national service in the RAF and a short flirtatious period in politics Clive eventually started work at the Financial Times followed by a stint as city editor of the Daily Sketch. There followed a period as a freelance focusing on economic analysis and financial magazines and several years at the start of AP-Dow Jones, moving back into national journalism at the Daily Mail. Branson went on to complete another bout of freelance work at the Investors Review which he later bought and subsequently sold to Charlie Forte. Throughout this time, he also did shifts on national newspapers including the Observer together with city offices of regional papers such as the Yorkshire Post.

After the Investors Review, he completed a period on the Sunday Times and later the Sunday Standard. He then moved to the Builder Group as editorial; director of RICS Journals overseeing the redesign and launch of CSW magazine (now Property Week), launching his final title Euro Property. His last national newspaper appointment was property editor on the European newspaper. He was still editing Commercial Property Register, a series of regional property titles, at the time of his death.

Clive and I met regularly for lunch with the conversation always covering a whole range of subjects, many grabbing the news headlines. We had over the years tried to launch a magazine together and were working on a book together, covering his experiences in the city and some of the stories he couldn’t break. I will miss him, and we will all miss those insights that have now alas gone with him.

Charles Garside, former Editor in Chief of the European:
In the rough old world of journalism Clive was a gentleman.
A fine journalist, a good raconteur, and an excellent lunch companion.
He loved business and the business of journalism. Another good man gone too soon.

Dominic Morgan, former News Editor, Property Week:
Clive is the reason I am where I am. In the summer of 1986, he offered me work experience two days a week at what was then Chartered Surveyor Weekly. That was my break in journalism and the start of an extensive career in the built environment. He was a mentor and an inspiration, imbuing his team with old-school Fleet Street news sense and a healthy mistrust of the pomposity that was rife in the sector in those days. And he always had your back. He’d support his journalists to the last, even when they might, on occasion, blur the lines between a juicy rumour and a confirmed fact.

Clive had great stories of his own and was a straight-talking raconteur, whether reminiscing about his national service, his brief foray into politics or his days on the street of shame. He was smart, charming, and good looking, with a south east London edge that could command a room when he wanted to.

Property journalism owes a lot to Clive. He played a big part in pushing that sector of publishing beyond the confines of the traditional trade press to becoming a lively, newsy, compelling, and sometimes controversial weekly read. Our world has lost a great friend.

James Whitmore, former City Editor, Property Week:
Without Clive I probably would not have become a journalist. I had long dreamed of being a writer but after spending an idle three years at university and screwing up my degree, I was fearful for my prospects. Through a mutual friend, Clive offered me a job “interview” at Chartered Surveyor Weekly. Fortunately, he didn’t give a fig about my degree. All he cared about was: “Do you really want to be a journalist”? He offered me a month’s unpaid work under the guidance of features editors, Janice McKenzie. I ended up writing a few (fairly ropey) regional features and he offered me a job as a junior reporter.

Clive was an old school editor. He loved telling us stories about his former life on Fleet Street as a financial hack. That was when he was in our Pemberton Row office, which wasn’t often. Sometimes he would be there early in the morning, sometimes he would be there later in the afternoon, but never in between. When he did come back in the afternoon, his daughter, Sophie, would invariably arrive to take him home.

One afternoon he came back to hear me on the phone being harangued by Michael Cole, Harrods’ PR man, after I had written an erroneous story about Harrods opening in Canary Wharf. He grabbed the phone and for the next five minutes gave Cole a piece of his mind. It didn’t matter that I had got the story wrong, I was Clive’s reporter and he always looked after his team.

Clive didn’t write a lot for the magazine, but the one feature he wrote religiously was about the seaside town of Worthing. It has to be said that Worthing did not really merit an annual feature, as it didn’t possess a commercial property market as such. However, it was where Clive had a second home and every year he would pop down for a few days, interview the local property agents and write up 1,500 words in praise of Worthing.

I loved those times in the late ‘80s working for Clive. I know my colleagues did too. He was a very kind person and such good company.

Charlie Potter, Founder/Publisher, Commercial Property Register:
Clive joined Commercial Property Register 24 years ago, a sprightly 62-year-old. The magazines were a niche publication but despite only cornering a small part of the market Clive’s enthusiasm and ideas to improve the product were boundless.

Of course, Clive was a good journalist but for me he came into his own when he hosted our regular editorial lunches. Clients were perhaps expecting a younger editor, fresh from university and instead were presented with Clive, a veteran of Fleet Street, a former war correspondent and a past editor of one of the big national property magazines.

Not surprisingly, lunches were very entertaining, memorable, and long! One of the more amusing stories that Clive would tell was when he was in his late twenties and was working on one of the national newspapers on Fleet Street. Clive had either been fired or, more likely, had told the editor to get stuffed but as a consequence was out of a job. Whilst nursing his wounds in a Fleet Street pub one of his old friends, a professional diver, joined Clive in the pub and asked a favour of him.

North Sea Gas had just been discovered off the coast of East Anglia and his friend had been hired with several others to survey the ocean floor for suitable spots for the gas platforms. Clive’s diver friend had been let down by a diving associate who had cried off late in the day and he needed someone to take his place otherwise he would lose the job and the lucrative earnings. He assured Clive that he would not have to dive as he would do it all but there was a safety requirement that each diver needed a “buddy” in case of emergency.

The next morning Clive found himself on a boat in the North Sea hiding behind a copy of the Financial Times, nursing a horrendous hangover, whilst the other divers, including his friend took turns to survey the ocean floor.

About lunchtime the captain of the boat, who had lost a leg during the war, approached Clive, and asked him why he was not diving? Peering back from behind his paper a nervous Clive replied that he had not been asked…not a problem the captain said…you are next!

Luckily, Clive was a fit young man, a keen rugby player and despite being told the diving basics by his friend was nevertheless still very apprehensive as he was lowered to the ocean floor. A much-relieved Clive returned to the boat a little later and then for the rest of the day had to avoid the crusty one-legged Captain who had taken an amorous interest in him!

Clive had a full life and was certainly one of a kind, who was a good friend and will be sorely missed!

Our tribute to Marcus Fairs

The sudden death of Marcus Fairs, editor of Dezeen, has shocked the design and architecture communities and also his peers, colleagues and former colleagues in design communication at IBP.

Marcus founded Dezeen in 2006, making it one of the first design-focused digital publications and helping transform how many viewed and found out about design and architecture news. He had previously been a reporter for Building Design and was the first editor of Icon. Throughout his career, he won numerous awards, including being a regular award winner with IBP.

Marcus Fairs, editor of Dezeen
Image credit: Dezeen

Harriett Hindmarsh, chair of IBP, wrote:

“Marcus was a friend and a colleague. Our world will be poorer without him. I worked with Marcus from the my first days in this industry, and he was always intelligent, challenging, competitive, ambitious and huge, huge fun. I remember many evenings spent laughing with him and I will miss him enormously. At a time when IBP is moving towards a new and exciting future, one that Marcus contributed to, it is sad that he will not be able to join us on that journey.”

Tom Broughton, president of IBP and managing director of Assemble Media Group, said:

“We are deeply shocked and saddened to hear of Marcus’s passing. He was an exceptional journalist and editor who began his early career in architectural journalism working on Building Design and who also made a major contribution to Building as a pioneering features editor.

“We’ll remember him for his stream of exciting ideas, unrivalled networking abilities, energy, infectious enthusiasm and, of course, for Dezeen, which he turned into a major success through his tenacity, creativity, and dedication.

“Our colleague Marcus was always challenging, always tough, always edgy, but always smiling and laughing too. He brought an unrivalled dynamism to the group – and none more so than we were on our off-site trips abroad or when he played in goal for our five-a-side football team and was diving around like he was playing in a World Cup final. Marcus was not only competitive; he was a force for good for the design community. Marcus will be sorely missed.”

Emily Booth, editor of The Architects’ Journal and a member of the IBP board, said:

“Marcus’s influence on the design media landscape was immense. He worked with vision and flair to broaden news, understanding, and engagement with and about all aspects of architecture and design. He brought the global design community closer together and his loss will be felt keenly.”

Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright, another IBP award winner, wrote on Twitter:

“Terribly sad, shocking news. Marcus changed online publishing as we know it and was always a mischievous, provocative presence in the design world.”

See more tributes to Marcus on Dezeen.

2021 Journalism Awards judges announced.

Richard Aylwin, MD, ACL, former City editor, Estates Times
Adrian Barrick, Editorial Consultant, former editor, Building
Giles Barrie, Managing Director, Strategic Communications, FTI Consulting, former editor
Property Week
Peter Bill, Freelance Journalist, former editor Building and Estates Gazette
Denise Chevin, Freelance editor and journalist, former editor Building
Mark Collins, Executive Director, CBRE
Tim Danton, Director, Danton Media, Consultant to Dennis Publishing
Rebecca Evans, Director of Content, De Havilland, former editor Construction News
Mark Hansford, Director, Engineering Knowledge, ICE, former editor NCE
Soraya Khan, Partner, Theis and Khan Architects
Mike Leonard, CEO, Building Alliance
Emma Maier, Freelance editor and publishing consultant, former editor Inside Housing
Dominic Morgan, Director, Ing media, former deputy editor, Property Week
Richard Northedge, City & Business Journalist, former editor, Sunday Business
Vanessa Norwood, Creative Director, The Building Centre
Peter Roper, Freelance Journalist, former editor New Builder
Dickon Ross, Editor-in-Chief, Engineering & Technology
Barbara Rowlands, Associate Professor of Journalism, London City University
David Saffin, CEO, Second Opinion Alliance
John Slaughter, Director, External Affairs, Home Builders Federation
Katherine Smale, Business Development Manager, Ferrovial, former correspondent, NCE
Caroline Thorpe, Freelance Journalist
James Whitmore, Tavistock, former City editor, Property Week
John Yadoo, Partner, Pryme Consulting

Details correct: August 2021

Executive Board Message 2021

I think you will all agree that it has been quite a year, but hopefully we should see a return to something that is, if not normal, then closer to normal life as we begin to pick-up the pieces and engage with colleagues and face-to-face business challenges.

The lockdown has given the IBP executive board a chance to reflect and review where we are as a membership organisation, and to look at how we might want to shape the role of the organisation going forward.

The executive board has lots of ideas and you will hear more about these initiatives over the next months as we prepare for this year’s journalism awards. If you have any ideas that you would like to share with the board please let me know by email to: Harriett.Hindmarsh@aecom.com

Harriett Hindmarsh
Chair, IBP

Graham Ridout remembered

Peter Bill, author and journalist, former editor Estates Gazette and Building magazine writes:

Graham was ‘Uncle Grumpy’ to his colleagues at Building. A nickname that captured the feelings off all who worked with a much-loved man whose irascibility never got close to covering his kindliness, gentleness and generosity. I remember him making a wooden window from scratch for a penurious sub-editor.

He was my first boss in journalism. I can see him now at Contract Journal in the early 1980’s, fag centred in mouth, hunched over a typewriter, squinting through the smoke at his copy, cursing his mistakes. (Those were days when you needed Tippex to make changes.) Then we would go to the pub and curse our employers.

At Building, in the late 1980’s, we were overpaying an outside firm of architects to produce fortnightly ‘on-site’ articles. Much better to have a trained engineer in-house, one who had worked on building sites. Graham’s maturity and experience gifting him the ability to establish rapport with nervous site managers. He would nod encouragingly as he half-whispered questions, half- apologising for asking. A style that teased out tales you would never find anywhere near a press release.

To know Graham was to be fond of Graham.

Andrew Pring, writer, editor and communications consultant, former editor Contract Journal writes:

What I remember most is how incredibly hard working and painstaking Graham was as a journalist, and how patient – until, that is, he exploded into a titanic rage when people’s idiocies (generally management’s) got all too much for him. We’d laugh about it in the pub afterwards, but he could get seriously worked up and I often thought his stress levels were too high for anyone’s good – but he got that way because he took his job seriously and wanted to do his very best each time he worked on something. A lovely bloke, and also very kind and thoughtful. Someone you could always rely on to watch your back.

Gerald Bowey, CEO IBP remembers:

A civil engineering graduate of Sheffield University Graham was an award winning journalist, being shortlisted for a IBP journalism award on several occasions and winning Technology Writer in 1988, Project Management Writer in 1990 and Building Journalist in 1996.

I first met Graham in the early 1980’s when I took over the role of director of The Campaign for Traditional Housing from Charles Knevitt, who had just moved on to The Times as their architecture correspondent. It was a controversial campaign, taking an industry dispute between the brick and block manufacturers and the timber frame housebuilders to the general public. Graham was a tough critic of the campaign but acknowledged the right of house buyers to know and understand how their home was built.

When I moved into PR and Graham to Building I remember well standing in the middle of a stone quarry with Graham pitching into the chairman of London Stone when the company had fallen on hard times and was seeking a buyer – I think I lost the account after the article appeared, but it was a great expose of failed management.

We remained good friends, he was one of IBP’s honorary auditors for several years, and we met for an annual lunch right up to last year. Graham was generous with his time and support for friends and to IBP, which will be greatly missed.

Denise Chevin, freelance editor and writer, former editor Building magazine writes:

I remember with such affection my days working with Graham. I was an eager rookie technical reporter who didn’t know a lintel from a lentil. As my boss, Graham was hugely encouraging and endlessly patient. And when I got chuntered at by the subdesk, as I invariably did, for being late with my copy on Friday evening, he would have a calming G&T or two waiting for me at the ‘Waterfront’, Building’s watering hole in South Quay. They were lovely days. I feel very lucky to have met Graham and to have worked with him.

The Annual Wren Talk: ’Nicholas Barbon – the man who transformed London’

Architectural writer and historian Jeremy Melvin gives this year’s talk on the colourful seventeenth century economist and financier, Nicholas Barbon, who turned property development into speculation and invented fire insurance.

It was not worth his while to deal little; that a bricklayer could do‘ an admirer wrote of Wren’s contemporary Nicholas Barbon. This  assessment contains the key to how Barbon transformed London: he turned property development from an extension of construction (bricklaying) into fully fledged speculation — where it has been ever since.

Barbon invented the concept of risk management through founding the first fire insurance company. His tracts, like ‘An Apology for the Builder’ and ‘Of Trade’, argued the benefits of continuous economic growth backed by expansion of credit. This led Karl Marx, with grudging approval, to make ‘Old Barbon’ the first economic authority he cited in Das Kapital.

Jeremy Melvin was formerly consultant curator to the Royal Academy architecture programme, he is Programme Curator for the World Architecture Festival and a visiting professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

The Talk and Q&A session will be chaired by Paul Finch, programme director of the World Architecture Festival and editorial director of the Architectural Review and Architects’ Journal.

Limited tickets are available to attend in person at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, and the event will also be streamed live on YouTube. Click here to register:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wren-talk-2020jeremy-melvin-online-in-church-registration-123350347209

IBP Annual National Journalism Awards for 2020: Nominations

The following nominations have been made in the IBP Annual National Journalism Awards for 2020.

Please note the nominations are listed alphabetically and the winner in each category will be announced at the Annual Journalism Awards streamed event on the evening of Thursday 19th November. If you have not already done so, please put this date in your diary.

ARCHITECTURE WRITER OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by Grimshaw

Ike Ijeh, London Architecture Works
Elizabeth Hopkirk, Building Design
Robert Wilson, Architects’ Journal

CONSTRUCTION/INFRASTRUCTURE WRITER OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by Willmott Dixon

Rob Horgan, New Civil Engineer
Jordan Marshall, Building
Ian Weinfass, Construction News
Fran Williams, Architects’ Journal

NEWS REPORTER OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by IBP

Peter Apps, Inside Housing
Lucie Heath, Inside Housing
Jack Simpson, Inside Housing

FEATURE WRITER OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by AECOM

Peter Apps, Inside Housing
Nathaniel Barker, Inside Housing
Zak Garner-Purkis, Construction News
Martina Lees, The Times and The Sunday Times
Jack Simpson, Inside Housing
Richard Waite, Architects’ Journal

BUSINESS/FINANCIAL JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by IBP

Luke Cross, Social Housing
Mike Phillips – Bisnow
David Price, Construction News

HOUSING /RESIDENTIAL JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by Barratt Developments

Peter Apps, Inside Housing
Nathaniel Barker, Inside Housing
Lucie Heath, Inside Housing

NEW JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by The Built Environment Trust

Lucie Heath, Inside Housing
Megan Kelly, Construction News
Thomas Lowe, Building

EVENT OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by Live Group

Architects’ Journal/Architectural Review/EMAP: W Awards and Programme
Building/Assembled Media Group: The Building Awards 2019
Dezeen: Virtual Design Festival (VDF)

DIGITAL LEADERSHIP
Sponsored by IBP

Marcus Fairs, Dezeen
Jamie Harris, Freelance (formerly Building magazine)

SCOOP OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by FTI Consulting

Louisa Clarence-Smith, The Times
Joey Gardiner, Building
Jack Simpson, Inside Housing

EDITORIAL BRAND OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by Marley

Architects’ Journal
Building
Construction News
Dezeen
Inside Housing

THE IBP JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by AECOM

The overall Journalist of the Year Award will be chosen from the winners of the individual categories